


Underneath The Lights (I Waited For You To Come Home)

by Krasimer



Series: And Now a Flower Grows 'Verse [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Family Issues, Happy Ending, Mettaton uses his stage persona as a way to cope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repairing bridges that you thought were burned forever is no small matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath The Lights (I Waited For You To Come Home)

The microphone rolls in his hand as he sweeps to encompass the entire audience, a smile on his face when they all give the perfect, unscripted cheer.

Mettaton is at the height of his career, a star well loved by those underground, and someday by those aboveground. This is nothing new, this is another day for him, and he is glad to have something to help him ignore the insistant nightmares that plagued him when he was in the insubstantial form of before. As much as he loves his cousin, Napstablook is not how he wants to stay. 

The cheers turn into almost-vicious whoops of joy when he pulls off a stunt, his wheel clattering across the floor and towards the final pose of the evening. 

His arms splayed wide, Mettaton wonders why anyone would ever leave the burning bright lights of the stage for anything so mundane and ordinary and boring as living in the shadows. The screen that displays for him is full of a heart, many in the audience forming the same shape with their appendages and he is soaring on the love and affection he feels from them. Why would he ever give this up? This is more fulfilling than staying at home ever was, even if he does miss Blooky terribly.

...Even if he does feel the slightest bit guilty over practically abandoning Alphys.

 

The human is standing before him, having just flipped his switch and bringing forth the new form Alphys had designed for him.

It's a pose-off, the two of them dancing around each other and Mettaton can practically hear the audience cheering, the swell of noise egging him on. The human is small, and he watches their feet-

(They could be a dancer, he thinks, and tries not to remember the girl who had passed through so long ago with a smile on her face and a dance in her step.)

\- as they step around him, practically skidding on their knees to pose dramatically in front of the camera. He smiles, cocking his hip and feeling the container that holds his soul shift as he moves, accomadating the movement like a well oiled machine. There's a moment, a second he has the chance to grab the human, take their soul and head for the rest of them, but then they pass closer and a small hand grazes his stomach, his own soul glowing.

It steals his breath away, and he forces himself away from the memories of Before.

Monster souls were never strong enough to sustain themselves out of their bodies, and all he really remembers these days is a sharp pain and a fear of never finding someone in time. Napstablook had always helped with those nightmares, but he hasn't seen dear Blooky in a long time.

Stardom does have a way of tearing families apart, it seems.

And then his body falls apart and Alphys is close enough to touch for the first time in ages. They've been in the same room since he became famous, but it has never been for this long or this close and she is crying over him. In his soul, he can feel their friendship stirring from it's grave, rising up until he can't feel anything else-

And then-

And then-

And then-

He wakes up in her lab, his body charging through a plug in the wall. His arms and legs, reattached, are barely mobile and a glance at his battery reading tells him worrying things. "Alphys?"

"I'm s-so sorry, Mettaton!" she whimpers, her claws raking gently over her head. "I thought I had everything in place for that form to run off the batteries longer than that, but I can't even get that right, and I just-"

"...Alphys, dear." Mettaton tilts his head, a smile on his face when she does. Within reach, he struggles until he can put an arm around her, drawing her into a hug. "I missed you." he whispers, pulling away when she lets out a squeak of noise. "I am sorry, my darling friend, that I ever let us grow apart."

Her face turns a deep red color at that and she grins at him, her bucked-teeth as adorable as he remembers. "I- The human left something for you," she says, swallowing nervously. "Made sure I knew where it was for before they wandered away." she holds out a key, a small 'M' carved into the handle. "They wanted you to go somewhere, and I-I agree with them."

He knows that key.

Curling it into his still mostly useless hand, Alphys smiles. "It's been a long time since we t-talked, Mettaton."

"Yes," he responds gently, sitting up straighter. "It has."

 

When he unlocks the door of his old house, Mettaton has to duck under the doorframe to get inside. 

A new battery and an emergency power-cord later and he was as good as new, Alphys practically shoving him out the door. Inside is still decorated the way he remembers, journals covering almost every inch of the floor and posters coating the walls. The bed, small and nearly useless, is where he chooses to perch as he looks around. 

"Well," he whispers. "Who says that remembering where you started is a bad thing?"

He manages to spend a few hours in his room before he gets bored and wanders next door. The audience is not here, there's no one to witness him skipping along the well-worn lines of a child's hopscotch. He kicks a pebble he finds on the ground and watches it skip to a halt against the cavern wall. Just down the walk, in the other direction, is where he remembers Undyne living. This path, not walked by him for so long, is just as familiar as anything else, and he smiles when he sees the snail paddock. 

They stare up at him with goopy eyes, disinterested in the presence of a famous robot.

"I wish I met more like you," he mutters, tracing a careful finger over the shell of the nearest one. "Unwilling to shout at any moment upon seeing my face." he settles on the ground, looking at all of them. "I suppose Blooky isn't here, is he? He must be out somewhere else. I suppose he could be in his house, but-"

"...Mettaton?"

He turns his head at the voice, watching his cousin float closer to him, the headphones that seemed a permanent part of him at this point only serving to make him look even smaller. "Hello Napstablook." he said softly, curling his fingers around his ankle. "I was coming to see you."

"Why?"

The word felt like an arrow to the heart, the final sword thrust through his gut before everything fell dark, the memories cutting out then. "I missed you," he said. "And I was informed that I needed to, by several people. There's a very determined child heading towards the King, right now, who may need our help in the immediate future."

When Napstablook didn't say anything, he curled in on himself. "And I was hoping you would be willing to sit down with me and catch up on each other's lives."

Floating closer, Napsta settled on the ground in front of him. "You left."

"I needed to find something," Mettaton shrugged. Feeling like a child for the first time in years made his shoulder curve around his face, the jagged spikes having been removed by Alphys. 

"Did you find it?"

"I don't think so." he whispered, looking at the dirt. 

Napstablook seemed to nod, then floated closer to his cousin and pressed against his side. "I missed you too." he said, his voice still hazy around the edges like it had always been. "Even if you left me to take care of the snails on my own."

Wrapping an arm around his cousin, Mettaton smiled. "I am sorry for that, too."

"Good." Napsta nodded again. 

They sat in silence for a while, staring at the snails in the paddock. The silence between them was calm and comfortable.

What surprised Mettaton was that Napstablook broke it.

"His name was different back then, and I think something might have happened to his mind in the years between, but the one you're looking for lives in Snowdin with his brother."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm actually really happy with how this came out. Mostly written to "Swan Lake" by Tchaikovsky, which somehow suits Mettaton really well.
> 
> Your support system is still there, even though you turned your back on it, Mettaton. You're lucky.


End file.
